Jules Day
by Delysia
Summary: Jules reflects on her birthday. It's becoming painfully obvious that she is not the same 29 year old who first joined the team. One shot.


**Jules Day**

_Set sometime after 4.10 The Cost of Doing Business, fits within the Over universe but works as a stand alone._

_.~.~.~.  
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_Greg Parker- "Snipers: Ed, you're Sierra Two; Jules, you're Sierra One. Mr. Lane?"_

_Ed Lane- "Absolutely. Absolutely. Spread the wealth. Is it Jules' day?"_

_Jules Callaghan- "Everyday is Jules day."_

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><p>Thirty seven.<p>

Thirty-_freaking_-seven.

Only three away from the dread 4-0.

Thirty seven candles on her cake this year or there would be if she did things like candles and birthday cakes. She prefers a pint of Ben & Jerry's and her own four walls over balloons and fire extinguisher jokes.

"Better have one handy just in case that cake goes up." That was what she heard when she turned 35, she highly doubts that Spike would take it easier this year. In fact he would probably do it up with a whole Over-The-Hill theme, even if it was three years too early. He would find it funny, he is two years younger than her- it gives him razzing rights and she would have to play along. Can't be the over emotional female on the team.

The guys take their aging in stride and why shouldn't they? They age, go bald, get gray and they are considered distinguished looking and she is forking over too much of her money to Sephora so she can pass a mirror and not want to instinctively cringe.

It's becoming painfully obvious that she is not the same 29 year old who first joined the team, back when it was still a job, back before she started to think of them as family- she thinks that was her big mistake.

They are close, maybe too close. Dr. Toth might have a point. She shouldn't be weighing important life decision based on _co- workers_. At this point they are practically a security blanket and Jules is looking more and more like Linus. She can't envision a day when she will ever be able to give them up and that is dangerous in its own right.

She should have her own friends, girl friends who would take her out and not rag her about wanting a cosmo instead of a beer. Someone to go shopping with, she is pretty sure Nat and her stocking Sam's fridge together doesn't count. It would be nice to not always stand at that makeup counter alone, to have someone to warn her before she bought that dress that yellow really isn't her color- _stupid misleading store lighting._

Instead she has a Kevlar vest and job with a built in purpose. She doesn't see her family at holidays, she see them for twelve hour shifts and then at least two nights a week they end up at The Goose after. It's their version of Sunday dinner.

Still, it's not the same. They have their own families, children, people to come home to. Jules doesn't even have a cat.

She has brothers she see at Christmas. They call a lot, well not Jacob but no one really hears from him, but they have their own lives, children and farms to run and honestly Jules ran out of common ground with them when she started wearing bras. They don't want to hear about her job, she is pretty sure Jason is still regretting teaching her to shoot, and she gets a little resentful when they talk about their families. Sometimes it's hard to remember that she choose this.

As for Papa Callaghan, she tends to screen his calls. His first instinct is to ask to always ask, "what happened?". Not 'hi', not 'how are you?', not 'I miss you'. "What happened?" Always waiting for that other shoe to drop and that was before he had to drive to Toronto in his beat-up pickup because his only daughter was shot by an armor piercing bullet. It's gotten worse since then.

She knows he worries about her, always has. She was never coddled in the traditional sense, there was too much work to be done for her to be fussed and petted on but he was always protective of his little girl. Tried to keep her safe, keep her happy, keep her heart from getting too dented. Jules is a spitting image of her mom, and she knows that worries him too- that she might one day end up like she did.

He hasn't tried to call today and Jules figures she will get the standard card and the $50 that he always sends a week late. He will sign it _from Dad _and she will put the card in shoebox under her bed. It's as close to a birthday tradition as she gets.

This year she vows not to spend the money at Sephora. At a certain point it's just fighting a losing battle.

Maybe she will look into finally adopting a cat. Jules is more of a dog person but in her line of work having a dog gets tricky and she loves her hand-laid hardwood floors too much to risk it. It's not a job where she can clock out at five to rush home and let Rover out. At least a cat would be something to come home to- name him Sierra or Remington.

She is making a decent dent in the carton when her phone vibrates. It's Sarge. It's her day off and she is still getting called.

"Hey. You can't survive the day without me?"

He ignores that. "How's the birthday going?"

"Good, managed to get my banister sanded." It's probably a little too telling that is how she choose to spend her time, working on a house that is still empty when she comes home at night.

"Sounds like an exciting day." Jules can almost hear him taking off his cap and wiping his brow during the brief pause. "So Sam is finishing with SIU now, and I figured we would met you at The Goose in twenty."

"I already told you, I have plans tonight." It's a little too defensive, she can hear it in her tone. She is slipping, she used to be able to keep it under wraps. She is getting soft in her old age.

"Sanding your banister. Come on, Jules. You managed to skip out last year; this is becoming a habit..." There is a warning there, a ledge he is trying to pull her away from.

"Rain check. We can go to The Goose tomorrow. Maybe you can get Marina to whip up some of those cupcakes..." It's a standard stall tactic, distraction. "How is Marina, anyway?"

"Yeah, yeah." Of course he sees through it, he taught her that. "Tomorrow, Jules." His tone leaving no room for negotiation.

"Tomorrow," Jules promises before a hasty goodbye and she is once again perfectly alone.

It's not that she doesn't appreciate the guys, not like a night at The Goose is some sort of punishment, but right now she needs some alone time, some time to reflect, to understand how she got to this place. She is thirty-_freaking_-seven and not a single prediction she had about her life has come to fruition.

When she was nine and loved riding more than life itself she thought she would own her own stable. At seventeen she knew without a doubt that she was going to marry Curtis Reagan and that they were going to have at least two kids and he would teach them hockey and she would teach them everything else. At nineteen she had been contemplating moving to the U.S. to L.A or New York and become a song writer. And at thirty seven she lives alone in a house that is far too big for one person- no horses, no husband, no kids leaving their stuff all up and down the hall, and (despite her promise to Steve) she can't remember the last time she picked up her guitar. It probably needs to be restrung.

Suddenly the Phish Food isn't going to cut it and she goes in search of that bottle of red she has been saving.

Saving it for what, she doesn't know. It's been in there for over a year now.

That realization is a little sobering, depressing even.

The SRU isn't the place where you can really ever advance, once your at the top there isn't much wriggle room. Two months from now and she gets a gala dedicated to her and that's going to be the high point of her career. Jules was never the type to believe in glass ceiling until she found herself pressed up against one. She probably should have opened it then, when Sarge told her- something to celebrate right? If only her now-not-so-secret boyfriend hadn't come downstairs offering to make her eggs. She never got those either.

She has gotten a a reprieve with that mess but honestly she is not sure it's for the best. It's still going to come out, Toth is going to get a case file where she will be a little over emotional, makes the wrong call, forgets to lock it all down and then what? She is a little surprised the tapes from when Sam was in that explosion hadn't given them away already. She had barely been able to keep her hands from shaking, let alone her voice.

They need to talk about it, about what then, but at this point she is just letting the clock tick-down; if she could have made a cut and dry choice she wouldn't feel so trapped. She almost wishes Greg had kicked her off the team, at least then it would have given her a direction.

She is too old to feel like one of those animals in the tar pits, she is not seven and Jase does not have her trapped in the downstairs closet. She is free, all responsibilities are self inflicted. So she wonders why she feels so frozen. Completely unable to move.

She loves Sam, is in love with him which is ridiculously frightening. She spent most of her life dodging that particular bullet and it took a literal one for her to wake up. Even that was slow going. It just sort of crept up on her. The way he automatically would adjust his strides to hers, the way he brought her a plant and not flowers, the way her blood would rush to her ears whenever he did that cocky little smile that she both loathed and loved. Then one morning she realized she was excited to get to HQ not because she wanted the Sierra shot, not because of her family joking in the weight room, but because as soon as she breezed through the doors he would be there- Sam Braddock.

And the strangest part? He loves her back.

That took a little getting used to, having someone actually love you can be a little unnerving at first, still is in a way. She can't help but waiting for the bottom to fall out; maybe she is her father's daughter after all.

It's going to end badly with Sam and she is not sure if she will survive the wake. She has never been in this deep; her whole world is on the line.

The fact that she is risking everything, risking her team, her family, her careful built reputation, speaks more than she does. She is determined not to utter those three little words again- last time she really screwed it up. She had been all wrong. She had thought maybe, just maybe she could have them both (the team and love) and not have to sacrifice anything. Turns out her dad was right when he told her "you can't have it all." Selfishness is easy to grow into when you are only caring for yourself.

It was stupid and she is acutely aware that if things went differently in that coffee shop her house might not be so quiet tonight.

Jules pours herself a second glass of wine. She is a lightweight but it's her birthday and she will have the whole damn bottle if she wants to. She is thirty-_freaking-_seven.

Tick, tock.

She knows that clock is ticking away, practically out of sand as is.

She loves kids and babies and seriously spends way too much on Christmas gifts for her nieces and nephews. She grew up babysitting the Kelland kids down the road and still thinks it was the easiest and most fun job she ever had. She is good with kids, which given her parents she probably shouldn't be. Her dad... well, he tries which is more than she could say about her mom. Five kids, Jules not even out of diapers, and she couldn't find a single reason not to swallow every pill in the house.

Jules doesn't even keep Advil in her home, a fact that has caused as fight with Sam on no less than three occasions. Jules wishes she could explain it but she can't, she won't. They muddled through without it when she was growing up, medicine was more carefully monitored than the rifles her and her brothers would steal for target practice. It's why she demanded to be weaned off the drugs at the hospital as soon as possible.

Everyone says how much she looks like her mom. Spitting image. Practically her mini me.

She doesn't want to risk how far that resemblance runs.

And there is the rest of it. As good as she is with kids, as much as part of her craves to fill up all the empty space surrounding her with noise and toys and a partner, she isn't really sure she is up for the challenge. We all become our parents, right? Her mom couldn't have always been like that, she has pictures to prove otherwise- her young, happy, carefree. Maybe settling down did that to her. Maybe their family produces women who cracked under the pressure of parenthood.

Sam wants kids. They haven't talked about it but she knows. His face gets a slack smile whenever she even holds Izzy, that just shy of goofy grin. She should probably avoid doing even touching babies when he's around. When he smiles at her like that, it makes her almost think they could do that, that she might be okay.

And no child should have it's future gambled on mights and almosts.

Still on nights like this when the house is too quiet she thinks about filling up those two extra bedrooms, one of them she is currently using to store all of her home improvement supplies. This place really is too big for just her.

Tick, tock.

SRU has it's own clock. It's not discussed but re-qualification comes up annually and those drills don't come as easy as they used to. Jules is clocking more hours at the gym but she wakes with muscles that protests the brutal treatment of the night before. It's only a matter of time until she can't run the course in three minutes. What will happen then she has no idea, not like she could stomach a desk job.

Most people give up SRU before they are weeded out. It's more than just the physical, it's the mental toll. You can only connect with a psycho waving a gun or take a Sierra shot so many times before you just can't handle anymore. The adrenaline rush doesn't make up for the rest. And though she would never admit it, the thrill hasn't been the same since that bullet ripped through her. There is fear where there use to be excitement. Getting shot is practically a right of passage, and she had been told it would change her, but she had chalked it up to an old wives tale, something the vets spread around to frighten the rookies. Jules had the text book understand of what a bullet could do, knew how to treat the victim, knew the ins and outs of weapons, knew the anatomy of a bullet wound, that most damaging paths it could take. All that paled in comparison to the real thing. No one ever tells you how hard it is to breath after, how your chest feels overly full and white hot, and how the pain echoes in your mind, drowning out words. She has a scar that aches after long days to prove how naive she had been.

She has another ten years, thirteen if she is lucky and really pushes herself.

What happens after that? She comes home to a lovely remolded home and maybe by then a cat.

This is why Greg never makes her team leader, not even when Ed was out of commission. She is great at following orders but giving them is another matter. She keeps waiting for someone to take her by the hand and lead her one way or another. Family or career? At this point she might just flip a coin.

There is the sound of a key in the lock and she leans her head back against the sofa to watch Sam enter, nearly tipping her third glass of wine as she does so. He is carrying a brown bag and trying to be quiet. It must be late.

"Hey." Damn that smile, it really isn't fair how sinfully good he looks when he grins.

"Hey," she replies, her head lolling back to watch him.

"Sorry it's so late. I got held up." His back is to her, his hands unpacking something just out of sight.

"It go okay with SIU?" She doesn't ask the other question because they don't discuss that. That guilt has to be pushed down and packed away, talking about it just made it more real. Dr. Luria would probably have a field day with that. Jules actually misses her, not the mandated counseling after every Sierra shot but she never felt like she could get anything past Luria. It was unnerving but at least it kept Jules from believing her own lies. _'And I'm okay...'_

"Yeah. It was text book." It's clear he doesn't want to talk about it which means it was anything but. Jules doesn't push, her head is far too jumbled to take on sorting out his. "Close your eyes."

"Sam..." She doesn't feel like playing. In fact she told him she wanted the night alone, he didn't listen. He never does.

"Jules, come on."

She lets out an upward sigh that causes her bangs to flutter across her face before acquiescing. Her third glass is nearly gone and she is feeling fuzzy and sleepy and not willing to battle. "Fine. Eyes closed."

Behind closed eyelids she she can see the room darkening, the a whiff of sulfur, and while she knows what is coming she still feels a bit giddy- it might be the wine or the fact that he cares enough to do this. Birthdays had never been to big on the Callaghan farm. Too much work to be done and brothers that couldn't put anything in the oven without it coming out charred and crunchy. Still they worked around it, and until she left at 19 a year never passed without a candle in front of her.

"Happy Birthday." A jam filled doughnut sits on a plate, a single candle alight in the middle.

She suddenly feels twelve again, back when the world seemed a little more manageable. She swallows hard, afraid to speak. There are pin pricks behind her eyes threatening to expose her, she can feel the telltale quiver in her chin. And Jules Callaghan does not get teary eyed over a simple birthday gesture.

"You never eat the cake. So I figured I would get your favorite." There is hesitation there, and she wants to tell him how perfect he is, how wonderful, but instead she just watches the small flame flicker. "Well, aren't you going to make a wish?"

She finds her voice, harassing him comes naturally. "What? No song?"

"Jules..."

"Fine, fine. One wish coming up." She pinches her eyes shut and for a second thinks about telling Sam she wants a pony, something to annoy him before the thought flutters away. Here she has a real wish to make, and while she doesn't really believe in fate and destiny she isn't going to risk it, not tonight. Only question is- what does she want?

Opening her eyes, she blows out the single candle watching the small trail of smoke spiral upward. "Done."

Sam passes her the plate, grabbing his own chocolate glazed doughnut before joining her on the sofa. "So what did you wish for?" He asks between bites.

"This."

Thirty seven and the clock keeps ticking.

-End-

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><p><em>AN: **Readers are powerful**, really they are. Authors spend hours working on a story and honing it before setting it out there and one word, one little "good job", or "that sucked" or anything really means a lot to us. For one shots it let's me know that you made it through to the end and even if your whole reaction to this piece is "Meh..." I would love that left as a review because half a dozen "Meh..." tells me something is not translating from my head to the page. Leaving a "good job" might seem like a waste of your time but little things like that means the world to an author like me. Even a "this sucked" gives me some sort of feedback (please feel free to point out what part sucked the hardest- maybe I can correct it). Just saying- **Readers are powerful. Reviews are love**. ~Delysia_


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